The Voters Who Like McCain

In a presidential run, he would have the votes of millions who disagree with him on major issues but like him anyway. His challenge is to get the votes of more people who agree with him. The fact that his base of support is people who disagree with him explains both why so many ideological soul mates dislike him, and why they may support him anyway. It’s because they think he is their best shot at winning. Thus if McCain becomes president, it will be the result of a cynical calculation by people who don’t like him even though they agree with him, on top of support by people who disagree with him but admire his lack of cynicism.

O.K., there are no free lunches. But what about free books? “Freakonomics” co-author Stephen J. Dubner turned down an offer of $4 (to be split with co-author Steve D. Levitt) from a reader who downloaded the book’s text from a file-sharing site. Dubner explains on the “Freakonomics” blog: “[I]f you were to pay us, why shouldn’t you pay the publisher? After all, their costs are just as legitimate as ours, right? That would bring the price to roughly $14. And then what about contributing to the distributor who got excluded—that’s got to be another $2 or $3. In other words, why should we be the only ones to get the offer of your generosity—are we simply more appealing b/c we’re the creator of the work?”

A new take on the notion that we’re all children of God: In “The Da Vinci Code,” Jesus marries Mary Magdalene, and their descendants become European royalty. “It’s an oddly appealing idea,” writes Steve Olson, the author of “Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins,” in The Los Angeles Times. “We tend to think of ancestry in terms of bloodlines, in which some individuals are descended from famous ancestors and others are not. … [But] Jesus couldn’t have just a few descendants living today. If anyone alive today is descended from Jesus, then so are most of the people on the planet.”

“If anyone alive today is descended from Jesus, then so are most of the people on the planet.”

Sorry to interrupt the speculation with a smidgen of logic, but take anyone alive today and follow the tree back to a distant ancestor of 2000 years ago. That particular person is descended from that particular ancestor (among others), and by your logic, that ancestor is an ancestor of “most of the people of the planet.” (Jesus is a Red-Herring… )

On McCain, while people still espouse the attraction of McCain, six years make a difference, eight will even more.

That I would have voted for McCain in a heartbeat six years ago; is a no-brainer but it is what it is 6 years ago. That same thought does not apply today. Times and people change; after the fiasco of our present day White House and the pandering of congress — a fresh face should be on the scene — will we get one?? Only time will tell.

The idea that we all could be descended from Jesus takes some getting used to. After all, if we’re all descended from Jesus, and Jesus is the son of God, that’s a pretty illustrious bloodline. But don’t let it go to your head. You’re also descended from Pontius Pilate and Judas, as long as they produced the requisite four or five grandchildren.

We’re all descended from beggars and kings, judges and murderers, merchants and slaves. We’re caught up in webs of ancestry — a big, tangled, sometimes dysfunctional family.

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The Thread is an in-depth look at how the major news events and controversies of the day are being viewed and debated across the online spectrum. Compiled by Peter Catapano, an editor in The Times’s Opinion section, the Thread is published every Saturday in response to breaking news.